It's difficult to know what to make of a scene reported outside the morgue at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center early on the morning of April 19, 2010.
As described by Officer Chad Honaker of the Winston-Salem Police Department, it was one for the books.
A van used by a company called Triad Transport — employees move dead bodies — had pulled up near a loading dock at the hospital about 1:30 a.m. Honaker, who was working off-duty, couldn't help noticing it.
The van had been wrecked. A body was lying on the ground underneath it, a stretcher and a body bag nearby. And the van's driver, later identified as 47-year-old Robert Franklin Clark Jr., appeared to be inebriated. A fishing rod and tackle box were visible.
What's the proper response? Anger or bewilderment? Laughter or tears?
Truth stranger than fiction
The best place, the only place, to start such a tale is at the beginning. According to court testimony, Clark was called about 10 p.m. on April 18, 2010, to pick up a body and take it to Forsyth Medical Center.
Exactly what happened between that call and the time Honaker saw the van may never be known. Specifics weren't offered in Forsyth Superior Court on Friday.
What we do know is this: An investigation was started, and Winston-Salem police found the butt of a marijuana cigarette in the van. Officers said Clark failed field sobriety tests and couldn't account for the three hours before he showed up at the wrong hospital.
Clark was charged with driving while impaired and misdemeanor hit and run. No charges were filed in connection with the body. He was convicted of the DWI in district court this year and given a suspended sentence. He appeared in superior court last week for a jury trial to appeal that conviction.
"The officer said (Clark's) shirt was on inside out and his zipper was down," said prosecutor Aindrea Alderson during her closing statement. "The deceased's body was outside the body bag on the ground.
"What he was doing during those couple of hours, I don't know. That time is lost. But he was smoking marijuana."
Overstated or horrific?
Police drew a sample of Clark's blood. An analysis showed marijuana, benzodiazepine (tranquilizers) and Tylenol PM.
They gathered evidence from a crash site near the intersection of Hawthorne Road and First Street. The van wound up at Baptist, and the corpse somehow ended up outside its bag. As to the fishing gear, Honaker surmised later that it belonged to Clark and was incidental to whatever had happened.
Brian Simpson, Clark's attorney, said his client's clothing was disheveled because he was asleep when he got the call, that the body had shifted during transport and that Clark was simply "trying to get it all back together" outside the morgue.
"Frankly, it was a little overstated at trial," he said.
Alderson wasn't buying. "That was somebody's loved one and should have been treated with respect."
Clark was found guilty of the DWI and not guilty of the hit and run on Friday. The jury's verdict notwithstanding, this whole episode was shameful and sordid.
It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
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